Join Bender Defenders!
St Margaret’s House have hosted Bender Defenders for many years for their weekly martial arts sessions.
Bender Defenders are a queer and trans martial arts community empowerment movement. They confront rising hate crime by teaching martial arts to queer and trans people and running self-defence classes for the community.
They were born out of Queer Night Pride demonstrations, which were organised in 2019 to reclaim the streets for LGBT+ people after a rise in hate crime. In their regular Muay Thai and karate classes, queer and trans people feel the benefits of training in a martial art in an inclusive, community-centred space.
People can get fit and release emotional burdens and anxieties through practising movements, pushing themselves, connecting with their bodies and with each other. Testimonies from their regulars show how important this space has become for their wellbeing.
They love punching and kicking things, but most of all Bender Defenders is about queer community and joy! Everyone is stronger together than alone. They connect queer and trans people through sport – something many people have felt excluded from in mainstream spaces.
Bender Defenders approach self-defence from a compassionate, trauma-informed and community-led perspective. They teach participants simple, effective strategies for using physical force to keep themselves safe. They use physical movement as a way to release anxiety, anger and fear and to help participants connect with their bodies and their power. They believe that queer and trans people already have a wide range of self-defence skills to draw upon, and they encourage participants to collaborate with trainers in sharing these skills, enabling them to feel more confident and empowered when they use them. They also take a holistic view of self-defence, remembering that keeping people safe means more than avoiding danger in the moment – it means creating community systems to heal from the harm hate crime causes in the long term.
Muay Thai beginner and intermediate level sessions take place weekly on Saturday afternoons at St Margaret’s House.
If you are interested in finding out more, please get in touch with Bender Defenders directly, who can provide you with further information.